


The Civil (Pumpkin) War

by Polska_1999



Series: Sprint Towards Blackout (Happy Steve Bingo 2018) [18]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Domestic Avengers, Fluff, Gen, Halloween, M/M, Pumpkin carving, Pumpkins, a much better version of Civil War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-06 13:44:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16388813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polska_1999/pseuds/Polska_1999
Summary: The preparations for the annual Avengers Halloween celebration began a Civil War.In Steve’s very honest opinion, it was all Tony’s fault.





	The Civil (Pumpkin) War

**Author's Note:**

> For the _Pumpkins_ square on my **Happy Steve Bingo** card.

The preparations for the annual Avengers Halloween celebration began a Civil War.

In Steve’s very honest opinion, it was all Tony’s fault.

The Avengers were hanging out in the common area. Bucky and Clint were discussing sniper stuff by the counter with Nat occasionally joining in, Tony was kicking Rhodey’s and Sam’s asses at Mario Kart Wii with Thor watching, and Bruce was talking to Steve about something related to the supersoldier serum. 

It was just after Tony won a round on Rainbow Road that the entire room ended up in a conversation about Halloween and costumes. Naturally, due to the high amount of pride each Avenger had in a respective skill, they began to debate how to decorate the tower, with Tony wanting something high-tech and flashy and Steve wanting to do something more traditional, like pumpkin carving. Tony then began arguing that he can use fancy tech to make pumpkin carving fancier, and within five minutes of that comment, the room was divided into two incredibly polar sides. 

Steve had picked up quite the impressive support base. Banner didn’t like the idea of using tech to modify and carve pumpkins because the event usually had a more traditional basis; Thor wanted to try carving pumpkins the way Midgardians normally do it and learn along the way about the tradition; Sam was unmoving in his decision that pumpkin carving should not be messed with. Even Rhodey turned against Tony on the matter, which made Tony remark that Colonel Rhodes was “dead to him” and that he would no longer maintenance the War Machine armor until further notice. 

Unfortunately for Steve, some people did side with Tony as well. Clint was interested if Tony could somehow tie in archery into pumpkin carving; Nat wanted to see if Tony could make pumpkins that jumpscare idiots when walked past; JARVIS sided with Tony since it gave him a chance to help with carving pumpkins, although Steve suspected that JARVIS’s choice was more due to a default for listening to Tony. Unfortunately for Steve, Tony wasn’t the only one who got betrayed by a closest friend — Bucky sided with Tony on the matter. 

“How could you, Barnes? I thought we were starting to get along!” Sam accused. 

Bucky stuck his tongue out at Sam childishly. Sam returned it. 

So, they made a deal. For the next week, each side would make pumpkins their way, and then at the end of the week, they would compare to see whose were better. Whoever won got to put their pumpkins around the tower for Halloween, which was 3 days after that. 

Steve’s team did decently over the first part of the week. Steve sketched a lot of designs, with Sam providing some of the best and most importantly honest feedback ever, even if it meant telling Steve that a design was not-too-good at times. Bruce and Rhodes and Thor also offered some input. Some designs were simple, like one of the War Machine faceplate, but some were more complex, such as Sam’s wings. Nevertheless, designs were fairly easy to decide on, and each person was going to have 2-3 pumpkins of their own. 

The carving part… that did not go as well as they had hoped. Steve kept misjudging his own strength at times if he got distracted, causing him to cut in farther than he meant to, but otherwise it was fine. Sam did pretty well, although due to the complexity of his design he had to work slowly. Rhodes was patient, and that let him carve a pumpkin that was mostly okay. But Thor? He tried, he really did, but his impatience and nerves got the better of him at one point, and he smashed at least 3 pumpkins with Mjolnir while trying to carve one. Bruce carved one and it was fine, but the Other Guy wanted to carve the next one, and, well… they barely managed to save the already-carved pumpkins from that incident. 

When the week ended and they showed up to present their pumpkins, they ended up discovering that the other team also had some craziness. They had a lot of decent pumpkins carved, but some of the stories they told involved almost blowing up the entire Avengers Tower by accident on several occasions. 

Pepper had been brought in as their impartial judge for the contest, and she declared a tie. The techy multi-colored variety of carved pumpkins created by Tony’s team definitely added an interesting twist for Halloween, but the traditional creations of Steve’s team were beautiful both objectively and when considering nostalgia. 

“That was probably the most fun argument I’ve had in a while,” Bucky commented after Pepper declared the tie in the Avengers’ little contest.

“Yeah, it was,” Steve agreed. “Could have used your knife skills on our side, though.”

Bucky huffed a small laugh. “My knife skills? Steve, we desperately needed you or someone with art skills. None of us were able to draw anything beyond a tactical map and a stick figure.  _ JARVIS  _ took pity and created the designs for us so we could carve at least on the last day.”

“Thor and Hulk each smashed several pumpkins each from frustration. I’m pretty sure there are still pumpkin stains on our living room floor.”

And so they continued trading stories back and forth as they walked back to their suite, the rift that tore the team gone within the blink of an eye. (Pepper really was a sorceress. Had to be, really, for nothing short of a magical ability could ever get the Avengers to get along.)

“Did we ever carve pumpkins together when we were kids?” Bucky asked suddenly as the elevator took them to their suite.

“We tried,” Steve answered, thinking back to the memory fondly. “The knife broke while we were trying to carve it, and after that, well, we never had the chance to try again.” That had been the Halloween before Bucky left for the war.

“Want to try again?” Bucky offered, a small smile tugging at his lips. “I’ll try it your way now.”

They did carve a pumpkin together, with Steve doing the designing with Bucky’s help and Bucky doing the carving with Steve’s help. It had the design of Captain America’s shield on it, the carving more perfect than the pencil lines of Steve’s design sketch, if Steve said so himself. (Bucky disagreed vehemently, of course.) 

And if that specific pumpkin took the front-and-center place of honor among the other carved pumpkins during the Avengers Halloween celebration three days later, then Tony  _ definitely _ had nothing to do with it. (He never told the press that the pumpkin was the first successful carved pumpkin created by a pair of semi-stable century-old friends, either.)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends! I am participating in the **Happy Steve Bingo** event and will be attempting to go for a blackout bingo; thus, I plan on filling all 25 squares of my card — that means, get ready for as many as 25 fics total featuring our favorite (if a bit self-sacrificial) supersoldier!
> 
> I personally never quite liked the plot of Civil War, so here I decided to write an alternative version of it that was more feel-good and fluffy and ridiculously extra in every way possible just like the Avengers. Since Halloween is coming up, this is also the perfect addition to my Happy Steve Bingo set.
> 
> I know my updating schedule has been very bleh as of late, but have no fears! This series will be finished, with 25 fics total, and they will be posted in time to complete the Happy Steve Bingo event!
> 
> Most of my works, including this one, are beta-read by the one and only amazingly wonderful [SpaceKeet!](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceKeet/pseuds/SpaceKeet) If you get the chance, go out and give her some love!
> 
> As always, thank you all so much for reading! If you liked it, feel free to drop a kudos or comment if you have something you want to say. Wanna contact me? You can find me on [Tumblr](https://polska-1999.tumblr.com/) or ask me for my Discord in the comments.


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